Township still waiting on state regarding cutoff

New 'No-Knock' ordinance in the offing

Photos

Andover Towmnship Mayor Janis McGovern

By Mandy Coriston

Andover — The Andover Township Committee met Monday night, June 11, and offered updates on several pieces of unfinished business.

The item of most interest is the still-pending Lackawanna Cutoff deal between the owner of Hudson Farm, the town, and New Jersey Transit. According to Township Attorney Fred Semrau, he, along with Councilmen Tom Walsh and Ellsworth “Ben” Bensley, Jr., attended a meeting on Friday, June 8 with the head of NJ Transit, Kevin Corbett. State Senator Steve Oroho (R-24) was also in attendance at the meeting to discuss the final details of the agreement which will bring Andover its own train station.

“The state is at 99% on the matter right now,” Semrau said, “and we’re hoping that by our next (township committee) meeting, I’ll be bringing an action item to the agenda to formally address the final agreement.” Semrau added that there are no other outstanding permits or hurdles to begin construction of the station, to be located off Roseville Rd.

There were several other items of old business to address, including updates on two residents’ individual requests from last month. Barry Walski of Lake Lenape had sought a change in zoning to allow chickens to be housed on his property as emotional support animals for his fiancée. Semrau said he looked into the matter with Zoning Officer Fred Suljic.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t something the governing body can make a decision on,” Semrau said, “It’s just not in their power to grant the change in zoning.”

Semrau suggested Walski continue to work with Suljic and apply for a formal zoning variance.

Another resident concern that was addressed in the last month was a drainage issue brought before the town by Ron and Elizabeth Foy, who live on Ballantine Road. The Foys were making arrangements with a neighbor to run a drain pipe under the street to allow for better drainage of their property. Township Engineer Cory Stoner assessed the situation and reported to the town that he sees no issues with the plan, which will be a private agreement between the Foys and their neighbor, and paid for by the homeowners. Semrau said the agreement is contingent on several stipulations, including that the town not be liable for any maintenance work or repairs to the drain pipe once installed, that they will not be part of any future disputes over ownership of the drain pipe, that they will be held harmless to any incidental damage done to the pipe if other work must be completed in the area, and that the homeowners involved in the private deal must file a copy of their agreement with the town. The Foys will also be responsible for acquiring all necessary permits to have the drain pipe installed.

The last bit of old business involved the plan to have a monopole cell tower built on the same property as the Municipal Building on Newton-Sparta Rd. Leasing the land for the tower will bring in additional revenue for the town, and Semrau expects to have the paperwork done and begin taking bids for construction later this month.

Items of new business included plans to draft a new No-Knock Ordinance to discourage unwanted door-to-door soliciting. Current law allows those with peddlers’ licenses to knock on residents’ doors up until 9 p.m., but the new ordinance would allow for residents to sign up for a No-Knock list, similar to a no-call list for telemarketers. What this would mean is that anyone granted a license to solicit within the town would be given a copy of the list, and if they persisted in approaching those residents, regardless of time of day, the residents would be able to file a complaint. Township Administrator Diana Francisco, Attorney Semrau, and Andover Township Police Chief Eric Danielson will work on drafting the new ordinance, to be introduced at the next Committee meeting.

In other new business, the township will be seeking residents who live outside of Lake Lenape to sit on a review board which will attend the assessment meetings for the Lake Lenape Dam. The main issue at hand is how the outside appraiser hired to do the assessments will handle the allotment of payments among the residents in Lake Lenape. The focus is chiefly whether all Lake Lenape residents will be given a flat rate to repay the loan taken out for the dam repairs, or whether it will be a tiered assessment based on proximity to the lake. With the repairs done, the time to begin repaying the loan is at hand. Lake Lenape resident Ray Wexler attended the meeting and he asked Semrau about the time frame for repayment, which the standard would indicate would be ten years.

Semrau said, “It may take longer than that, which would mean lower payments for you all over a longer period of time, but it will all depend on how the assessment goes between the appraiser and the review board.”

Residents interested in sitting on the review board should contact town hall, and information will soon be available on the township website.

In her report, Mayor Janis McGovern had a few items of note from the Environmental Commission. The Open Space Fund, which has merged into and become the Environmental Commission, was charged with conducting a survey every ten years to determine what residents would like to see done with their open and recreational spaces. Since the ten-year mark for a new survey is upcoming, the Commission will be exploring options for best reaching residents and collecting data. McGovern also reported that the trail maps, being designed with grant money and in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy, are coming along nicely.

“Once completed, the maps will be available online and as hard copies,” McGovern said. “We have already had a nice return on our money by receiving the grant to have this done.”

McGovern also noted that on a county level, the studies being done at Hyper Humus Marsh to evaluate how best to restore the watershed there were funded in part by an anonymous Andover Township resident.

“The work they are doing over there will determine how to bring the (Paulinskill) river back to a state where it can filter out bacteria and other contaminants,” McGovern said, “The peat that was originally in the marsh served that purpose, but peat takes thousands of years to re-form. They are collecting data to see how the river can perform that function.”

The marsh is located in Lafayette Township and was named for the company which in 1915 began commercially “mining” and selling the peat deposits from the wetlands area.

Councilman John Carafello had some new developments to report in the town’s plans to deal with the invasive emerald ash borer.

“We’re going to have to accelerate the program with JCP&L to inspect the town’s ash trees,” Carafello said, “We lost another one at the park last week.” Carafello said they will be working on acquiring grant money to hire a forester and get ahead of the problem. “We have between two and five years to really tackle this issue, and we’ll be making a much bigger project of it in the coming year. Being able to work with a forester would really help.”

Carafello’s main concern is that ash trees will fall without warning and could damage property, cause injury, and take out utility lines. The emerald ash borer feeds on the heartwood of ash trees, causing them to become potential deadfall hazards. Carafello continued to urge residents to monitor ash trees on their properties.